Irregularly shaped foods such as slices of pizza, pie, or cake are notoriously difficult to package and store. This is especially true if the entirety of the pie shape is not originally fully consumed. The left over pie shapes are desirably stored flat so that one piece does not merge into another and, yet, horizontal or shelf space for the footprint of the left overs is at a premium in most refrigerators. Clearly, there is a desire to store for future consumption the left over pie shaped food. Yet, to do so without consuming unnecessary shelf space is very desirable. Currently, the leftovers are placed on a plate (or a piece of aluminum foil) and the same placed into the refrigerator. That, however, uses significantly more shelf space than desired, especially if more than one pizza slice is to be stored for future use.
Due to their shapes, pie-shaped leftovers cannot easily nor efficiently be stored in a rectangular container. And, if a rectangular container is large enough to accommodate the slices, there is usually quite a bit of wasted cavity or container capacity, again at the expense of valuable horizontal shelf space in the refrigerator. To accommodate shapes such as slices of a circular pie, generally forming individual triangles or pie wedges, for example, a rectangular container much larger and of much more volume than the food item itself has been used. It is also desirable to avoid stacking the leftovers on top of one another as this allows the top of a below located piece to come into contact with the bottom of the piece located above it. That can ruin the topping. The use of a flat carton, however, wastes valuable space in a cabinet, refrigerator, or other location for storing food. Also, because food containers often are not intended to hold a large surface area of flat food, it is not uncommon for these food items to require a separate container for each piece, which requires even more storage space. As an alternative many consumers store these foods in foil or plastic wrap. And, if they are so stored, either a waste of foil is consumed to individually wrap the slices or the wrap extends around all of the flat slices, again to the disadvantage of the shelf space. And, if the pizza slices are stacked one upon the other within the plastic or foil wrap, the topping of a first slice will come into contact with the bottom of the above slice. This is undesirable. Further, triangular and other oddly shaped foods are difficult to cover with foil, either tin or aluminum, or plastic wraps—as the foods might not easily fit the width of the sheets or, even if they do, the sheets must be cut in rectangular increments which, like standard rectangular containers, cannot completely cover the item without leaving extra unused cavity space or wasted foil. Due to the shapes of these foods, multiple pieces of foil or wrap often must be used, wasting the foil or wrap and sometimes creating a clutter of material that can be difficult to unwrap. Even further, the excess foil or wrap caused by the rectangular sheets or multiple layers often create an irregular shape themselves, particularly on the top surface, which makes stacking multiple items in storage extremely difficult and require more space yet again.
There remains a need to package irregularly shaped foods, such as those that are triangular or pizza pie slice shapes, in a space efficient manner which can be vertically stacked with the slices individually maintained. The present invention is a basic triangular container with a rounded (or straight chord) back or perimeter/circumferential outer wall to accommodate triangular foods cuts from an original circular dish. The container can be reheated or frozen to simplify storing and heating. The food can be easily placed into the individual pie-shaped piece holding cavity(ies) and then removed, individually, as desired. The invention also includes some mechanism to allow for vertically extending the container for storage of individual pieces. In the preferred embodiment, additional slice-shaped pieces are provided which accept vertical pegs which are held in small holes in the top surfaces of the pie piece separators. This spaces and stacks the cavities. This allows the pie-shaped cavities of the container to conveniently vertically expand or stack on top of one another and to be collapsed in size, if fewer pie slices are needed to be stored or as pieces are consumed. This will securely, quickly, easily allow for multiple slices to be stored without the risk of individual slices shifting or falling over one another. This saves considerable shelf space in a refrigerator, freezer, or cabinet.
The inventors are aware of large storage containers for long term storage of cakes, and other odd shaped foodstuffs. There is not believed, in the prior art, to be any food container which occupies a minimum of shelf space when only one pizza shaped slice is to be stored and, yet, can be vertically extended, as needed, to store two or more pizza-shaped slices of food. The present invention accomplishes this and other important advantages while ensuring that the slices are physically separated from one another during storage.
Also, current reheating of pizza pie slices or other foodstuffs require removal of the slice from the container or wrapper. The present invention contemplates the use of a bottom slice-shaped holder which is formed of a sandwich of material with a thin layer of metal or aluminum which, in a microwave, can reheat the slice for consumption.